Flight simulators often come in two flavors. The first is one with an
attention to real-life physics, but has its fundamentals compromised to
make it fun. The second is one that could almost end up in a commercial
flight training school and frequently is not fun to those outside of the
niche. Motorcycle racing games are not that different. Moto GP is a
classic motorcycle racing game that pays homage to the days when Pole
Position was considered a racing simulation. Nowadays, we have NASCAR
and Formula One racing titles that border on simulations with Need for
Speed and Grand Turismo picking up the slack for the mainstream racers.
Moto GP is clearly of the latter ilk and its emphasis on racing, rather
than tricks or manoeuvring maze-like corridors, makes it a simple racing
game to get into.

The controls have you pressing one button for acceleration and one
button for braking. There is an option to perform a turbo with the
directional pad but on the whole, I found that was not a necessity in
the game at all. Motorcycle racing is a dangerous sport. It's the one
where you hang on (no pun intended with Sega's classic arcade motorcycle
racer) to your bike with your kneecap a few inches before scraping
pavement at an excess of a hundred kilometers per hour. It's the sport
where one false move and you're more than likely done for. Moto GP's
fast frame rate and great looking visuals is able to convey this sense
of speed, but only the speed and none of the racing.

You see, I don't know much about motorcycle racing. Moto GP presents you
a variety of race modes from the more traditional time attack to all out
tournaments. That's simple enough and is expected from most racing
titles. Moto GP also allows you to select from a variety of personae,
each with their varying skills and idiosyncrasies. Unfortunately, none
of this pretense to realism is actually reflected inside the game
itself. Every race plays out more or less the same: the race starts
off with a full field of racers and once you get a green light to go,
within minutes, the racers will divide themselves fairly evenly across
the track. Furthermore, all the racers appear to go at an average of
about 150 kilometers per hour, plus or minus a few depending on the
course conditions. Your motorcycle is capable in excess of 200
kilometers per hour. Why the racer in position 12 does not simply
accelerate on a straightaway (however small it is, since motorcycles
accelerate much quicker than an automobile) to take over the racer in
position 11 is a question that I found myself positing. To their
credit, 150 kilometers per hour is probably a safe speed to corner at in
Moto GP and the opponent racers will sometimes try to stay in front of
your bike to block you. Your AI opponents will weave and adjust to
corner turns at the requisite 150 kilometers per hour average. But
there were wider turns where I found I could maintain a higher speed and
still keep my bike upright and this peculiar behaviour plagued all the
racers; from the first position to the last.

The simplicity of Moto GP is a double-edged sword. It makes the game
easy to pick up but it also makes it even easier to put down. Despite
the varied modes, the gameplay is the same and the lack of sophisticated
AI play means you'll be entertained for one or two rounds until the
races become too long (and too easy) to bear. I still maintain that
Moto GP is a fun game. The racing part, at least technically, is well
done. Actual races, on the other hand, are more of a foregone
conclusion. You either are able to catch up with everyone else and win
or you have trouble stumbling through the entire track, at which point
you may be tempted to turn the game off. If you're stuck in a
tournament however, you probably don't want to since there's no
provision to save at any time you wish. Moto GP relies on password saves
so you have to work until you get to the next milestone before it issues
a password. The fact that this never happens in the middle of a race
and at infrequent times is an infamia in portable gaming. In this day
and age, with the racing genre highly developed as it is, Moto GP still
has quite a bit to learn. Getting the basics down isn't always the
ticket, ex cathedra, to success.